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Free Press Staff Writer

Raw video: "I'm two different people," Keyes tells...: Israel Keyes, who confessed to kidnapping and killing William and Lorraine Currier of Essex, tells authorities that no one really knows anything about him. (Produced by RYAN MERCER/FREE PRESS)

Bill and Lorraine Currier of Essex had gone to bed for the night when serial killer Israel Keyes broke into their darkened home on Colbert Street in Essex, using a headlamp to navigate his way to the bedroom he’d already identified by scoping out the house earlier.

It would be the start of a night of unimaginable horror that would end a few hours later in the couple’s brutal deaths in the basement of an abandoned farmhouse about 2 1/2 miles away.

Amid the troubling details, unveiled by Vermont prosecutors a day after Keyes killed himself in an Alaska prison, another theme emerged — a theme of courage.

Lorraine Currier escaped her bonds at one point and made a break for it, only to be recaptured by Keyes. And Bill Currier demonstrated concern for his wife, struggling against Keyes so much that finally he was shot and killed.

“It is clear from the facts of this case that, though confronted with death, Bill and Lorraine showed extraordinary bravery and an extreme dedication and love for each other,” a visibly moved Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan said at a midafternoon news conference Monday. “They fought to the end.”

Donovan, U.S. Attorney for Vermont Tristram Coffin and other officials revealed for the first time the details of a mystery that had bedeviled Burlington-area residents for a 18 months: How did the Curriers come to disappear in June 2011? Who killed them? And why?

In the end, the Curriers were merely victims of cruel circumstance. Their remains have never been found.

“The Curriers in no way did anything wrong or contributed in any way to this tragic series of events occurring,” Coffin said. “By all accounts, they were friendly, peaceful, good people who encountered a force of pure evil acting at random.”

State’s Attorney Donovan and others described what happened when a serial killer intersected with a hard-working suburban couple. Bill Currier, 50, was a longtime employee at the University of Vermont, while Lorraine, 55, worked for more than 25 years at Fletcher Allen Health Care.

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Donovan said the only reason they were targeted was that their house fit the profile Keyes was seeking when he came from Alaska to Vermont to commit murder.

“Keyes was specifically looking for a house that had an attached garage, had no cars in the driveway, did not have children, and did not have a dog,” Donovan said. “Keyes was also looking for the type of home where he could accurately predict the layout of the house and easily identify where the residents would be sleeping.”

Keyes, who was 34 and lived most recently in Anchorage, admitted to killing numerous individuals over a multi-year period, Alaska prosecutors say. It was the Currier killings, however, that for the first time generated significant attention to his deeds, he would say in jailhouse conversations with authorities.

Picking a victim

Federal and state prosecutors, Essex police and the FBI met with members of the Currier family on Monday morning to give them details about what they planned to release later in the day. It was an emotional briefing as the family finally heard details of the final hours of Bill and Lorraine Currier.

Keyes had flown from Alaska on June 2, 2011, to Chicago, rented a car and began to drive toward Vermont. He checked into Handy Suites on Susie Wilson Road in Essex on June 7. During the evening of June 8, Keyes left Handy Suites and began to look for a home to break into, kidnap the residents and murder them. He also went fishing after securing a three-day license.

After picking the Currier house, he cut the phone line to see if there was a security alarm system. Keyes removed a fan from a garage window and saw no sign of a dog or children. He used a crowbar from the garage to break the back door window.

Donovan said Keyes reported that he “engaged in what he called a ‘blitz’ attack on the Curriers, and ran to the room he had earlier predicted was the bedroom. Keyes estimated it took him approximately 5-6 seconds to get from the broken entry door to the Curriers’ bedroom.”

The headlamp was the only lighting, Donovan said. Keyes used zip ties to restrain the Curriers. He asked them if they owned a gun or had a security system. He went through the home and took Lorraine Currier’s purse, a handgun and their cellphones.

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Keyes eventually forced Bill Currier into the back seat of his family car, while Lorraine Currier was seated in the front. Keyes then drove to an abandoned farmhouse at 32 Upper Main St. in Essex. Keyes had previously scouted out the vacant home, gone inside and planned to use it as the place to kill the couple.

He drove behind the farmhouse. Keyes led Bill Currier, who was still restrained, into the farmhouse and tied him to a stool in the basement.

“Upon returning to the car, Keyes saw that Lorraine had broken free from the zip ties that had earlier bound her hands and feet. Keyes observed that Lorraine was running toward Main Street,” Donovan said.

“Keyes tackled Lorraine in order to regain control of her, which he was able to do,” Donovan said. Keyes brought her back into the house, took her to the second floor and tied her back up. After hearing a commotion in the basement, Keyes headed downstairs.

The killings

When Keyes reached the basement, he found that the stool used to anchor Bill Currier was broken and the husband was partially free.

Keyes, in an effort to control Bill Currier, said he hit him with a shovel, but Currier continued to struggle and yell about the whereabouts of his wife.

“At this time Keyes realized that Bill was not going to cooperate with attempts to subdue him. Keyes then retrieved the gun and silencer and shot Bill Currier to death,” Donovan said.

He went back to the second floor and sexually assaulted Lorraine Currier, the prosecutor said.

“During the sexual assault, Keyes strangled Lorraine to the point where she lost consciousness. Keyes then brought Lorraine, who was still alive, to the basement. During this time Lorraine did not appear to be fully aware of her surroundings. At this time, Keyes strangled Lorraine to death,” Donovan said.

Keyes then placed the bodies in separate garbage bags and used a second bag for each to fully enclose them. He put them in the corner of the basement and put debris on top of the bags.

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Keyes left the farmhouse in the Currier car and parked it in the parking lot at Lowe’s Home Improvement on Susie Wilson Road. He checked out of Handy’s Suites and used the Currier car to head toward Lamoille County with the intent to rob a bank in Johnson.

The Currier car began to overheat and was low on fuel, so Keyes turned around and went back to Essex. He dropped the car at an apartment complex at 241 Pearl St., which was around the corner from his rental vehicle at Handy’s Suites. He drove the rental car to the Bangor, Maine, area, presumably to visit relatives.

After a brief stay in Maine, he began a return trip to Vermont. He stopped in New Hampshire long enough at a National Forest site to burn all the evidence from the Curriers, except for their handgun.

When he got back to Essex, he drove past the apartment complex and noticed police yellow tape at the scene and the Dumpster, next to which he parked when he left the Currier car, was missing.

Keyes decided to leave Vermont, but began to closely follow news accounts of the investigation. As he drove through Parishville, N.Y., Keyes tossed into a reservoir the gun he stole from the Curriers and the gun and silencer that he brought from Alaska.

Identifying Keyes

Essex Police, with assistance from other agencies, attempted to find a solid lead, but got no serious ones for 10 months. Then came a call from Alaskan authorities in early April indicating that Israel Keyes was in prison for the killing of a coffee shop worker there and that he had confessed to killing the Essex couple.

It was now a matter of putting some truth-testing to his confession. Keyes gave police a detailed layout of the Currier home and the farmhouse on Upper Main Street. He also described how he entered the home and had left broken glass from the door leading from inside the garage into the home.

Keyes also knew the make, model and description of the gun stolen from the Curriers. He also mentioned cutting the phone line and stealing Lorraine Currier’s purse. He also described the military patches and medals that Bill Currier had earned while in the military and where they were in the home.

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He also told investigators where in New York state he disposed of the gun owned by the Curriers and the gun and silencer he brought with him.

“Over the course of the summer 2012, both guns were recovered in this reservoir by FBI dive teams,” Donovan said.

Authorities were sure they had their man.

It was Keyes who directed investigators to check the farmhouse at 32 Upper Main St. in Essex for the couple. Little did he know that the owner, Betty Atkins, had contracted to have the multi-story farmhouse leveled and trucked away to a landfill in Coventry in the months after the Curriers’ deaths there.

After a search of the property April 12-13, Essex police said they would not confirm that they had recovered evidence, but crime scene technicians were seen placing items in evidence bags.

Finally on July 20, Coffin, the U.S. Attorney, Donovan, the state’s attorney, Brad LaRose, the Essex police chief, and Danny Raycheck, the head of the FBI in Vermont, announced the case had been solved and the responsible person was in a prison out of state.

The sticking point at the news conference, which was filled with two dozen variations of “no comment,” was that authorities refused to the release the name of the suspect.

That evening a WCAX-TV reporter in South Burlington, citing sources that she did not name, identified Keyes as the man responsible for breaking into the Currier home, abducting them and later killing the couple. No Vermont prosecutor or investigator was willing to put their name on the line and identify Keyes as the wanted man.

At Monday’s news conference, authorities made clear why they refused to release his identity. Keyes, who has at least one daughter, repeatedly told state and federal authorities in Alaska that he would stop talking to them if his name was leaked for killing the Curriers. He was serious, as it turned out.

Keyes stopped talking to investigators about the Curriers and other cases after he was named as a suspect.

It was through gradual coaxing and work that communication resumed with Keyes, but he was not as forthcoming about the names and locations of at least five other homicides that he claims responsibility for in other states.

Coffin said the most recent interview with Keyes in Alaska took place last Thursday.

On Sunday morning Keyes was found dead in his private prison cell, taking the rest of the stories to his grave.